


What Lies Beneath

by lucymonster



Series: People Change (Memories Don't) [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Coerced Medical Care, Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:11:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7055809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The Winter Soldier glares at Steve. "You think I'm just a blank slate that you can write and rewrite however you want. Like I don't know exactly who I am and what I'm here for."</i>
</p><p>With the fallout from the Accords reaching crisis point, Steve tries to help as many of his friends as he can. The trouble is, not all of them want to be helped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Lies Beneath

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to ladylapislazuli for the beta.

The chopper flies in not long after dawn, when Steve’s eyes are so tired he can hardly make out the shape of it in the sky. Clint and Wanda are there, a bit rough around the edges but not visibly injured. Sam leans heavily on Clint as he disembarks. T’Challa is with them too, plainclothed and grim-faced, and he motions Steve aside as the others are ushered indoors.

“This is a mess, Steve.”

“I know.” The news channels have been playing footage of the incident on loop. The JCTC had caught up with Wanda and Clint in Italy while they tried to make contact with Sam. In the fight it took them to get out of there, the Avengers tore up half a highway and knocked an army helicopter clean out of the sky. One bystander died at the scene. Two government agents are on life support. “I can’t thank you enough for getting them back here safely.”

“I had little choice,” he says sharply – but Steve must look more pathetic than he realised, because T’Challa’s face softens a little. “I spoke to Sam on the ride here. He believes that he was followed from the moment he crossed Wakandan borders. Which means that someone has been watching my territory.”

“Or they followed us here from the States,” says Steve. Neither option is good news.

From the look on T’Challa’s face, he’s thinking along the same lines. “If the JCTC have reason to believe enhanced fugitives are seeking refuge in Wakanda, their first step should be to reach out to me.” Wakanda is a signatory to the Sokovia Accords, and publicly one of their most strident defenders; T’Challa personally helped the JCTC arrest the Avengers in Leipzig and handed over Zemo to their jurisdiction despite Wakanda’s legitimate claim on him as the assassin of King T’Chaka. Which means …

“They know you’re working with us,” says Steve.

It’s not all that long ago now that being on the run from the government felt almost too easy – a vacation of sorts, just Steve and Sam on the road together with nowhere to be and nothing to hold them down. But in coming to Wakanda, it seems they finally outran their luck. And apparently they’ve dragged T’Challa down with them. Of course he had to get involved in Italy – the last thing he can afford right now is for anyone with direct knowledge of his arrangement here at the facility to fall into JCTC hands.

T’Challa makes an equivocal gesture. “My intelligence service has picked up no whisper of international suspicion against us. If my friendship with you is known, it is known only to the JCTC themselves. And they have chosen not to move against me or to share their suspicions with allies, which suggests that their case is not strong.” He grips Steve’s arm, and gives him a tiny sympathetic smile. “I must act decisively now to prevent them linking my security forces to the near miss in Rome, or obtaining any further evidence of your presence inside my country. Which is why I must ask that you and your friends stay in this facility while I arrange your next destination.”

He speaks as though he’s asking a casual favour. Steve isn’t fooled for an instant. “This is your way of telling me I’m under arrest, isn’t it?”

T’Challa dips his head. To his credit, he doesn’t try to obfuscate. “For my part, our friendship has not changed. But my first and most important responsibility is always to my people. If you are sighted leaving my borders again, it will cause a great deal of political trouble both at home and internationally. I do not enjoy the prospect of holding you against your will. That is why I ask you, as a friend, to cooperate with me while I work to prevent disaster.”

The facility is where Steve wants to be. It’s where he’s chosen to be of his own free will for the last several weeks, ever since T’Challa’s doctors brought the Winter Soldier out of stasis to try and treat his Hydra brainwashing. Before yesterday, if anyone had asked him to leave, Steve would have fought them. But now T’Challa is telling him he _can’t_ leave, and the thought makes the walls feel close and oppressive around him.

Last night, as the situation in Rome was reaching crisis point, the Winter Soldier broke his streak of good behaviour by attempting to beat Steve’s brains out against the floor of his cell. He’s still awake downstairs in his cage, shouting abuse at the lab staff and trashing everything that isn’t bolted to the floor. Steve’s not sure what triggered the outburst or what the hell they’re going to do with the Soldier now.

But T’Challa has done so much already. He has earned Steve’s trust a dozen times over. It’s for Steve’s sake as much as anyone’s that T’Challa has his doctors helping Bucky in the first place. Steve owes him this.

“Just tell us what you need,” he says.

–

It takes time for the Avengers to get cleaned up in medical. Wanda has managed to avoid any damage, but Clint took a nasty blow to the head that the doctors are anxious to keep an eye on, and Sam has three broken ribs and nasty black bruising all up his left side. The med bay is too crowded for all of them at once. Steve’s presence only slows things down.

His eyes are itchy from lack of sleep, but he feels wide awake and restless and the thought of trying to lie down makes his skin crawl. He paces the corridors and cuts a wide instinctive berth around the path leading down to the lab. He stops by the surveillance room, but can’t quite bring himself to go inside. Some of the staff issue friendly greetings as he passes them. He answers on autopilot and lets his mind wander.

If the JCTC know T’Challa has been helping Steve, he can’t rule out the possibility that they know who else is hidden in Wakanda. And if they know, then it’s only a matter of time before they come for him. Bucky is too high-stakes for them to let his case play out in its own time.

The thought of anyone finding Bucky in his current condition is almost comically horrifying.

But they haven’t moved in yet, and Steve finds that as unsettling as anything. In his experience, the JCTC aren’t big on empirical evidence – they’re happy to make drastic decisions based on suspicion, and they’re not afraid of crossing sovereign borders and violating international laws to implement those decisions. If they suspect T’Challa is harbouring Bucky, and they’re still hanging back, then that suggests they’re after something a little more tactically involved than Bucky’s head on a platter. Which doesn’t bode well for Bucky or T’Challa or anyone else involved.

Steve looks out the window at the clear sky overhead. Wakanda’s defense technology is state of the art, their border protections and aerial scanning capabilities are decades ahead of anyone else. But what about satellite surveillance? What about stealth drones? No border force is ever truly impenetrable. How can Steve be sure the JCTC aren’t already aware of the location of this facility, aren’t just sitting back and biding their time while they plan their attack?

The thought kicks off an anxiety spiral that no amount of pacing can purge from his system. His tired mind is stuck on a loop, running over and over he same theoretical scenarios which he can’t possibly hope to resolve.

But eventually, the Avengers are deemed well enough to leave the med bay. Steve finds them in a huge reception room overlooking the front courtyard, their meagre belongings all piled up beside the doorway while they wait to be allocated rooms for their stay.

They all look up when he enters the room. After everything that’s happened, everything they’ve been through and everything he has failed to do about it, they’re still looking at him as a leader.

“Wakandan intelligence have eyes on a JCTC recon squad in Kenya,” Steve tells them. “They’re close to the border and they’re not leaving anytime soon, and T’Challa’s asking that we don’t either. We don’t know what’s going on yet, but he needs time to smooth things out.”

Sam gives Steve a weak smile from his station on the couch. “I don’t think we’re planning to move out anytime soon,” he says. “Clint here got himself pretty banged up, he needs a few days’ rest.”

“Says the moron who tried to bodyslam a speeding motorbike,” says Clint good-naturedly. “But hey, Steve, aren’t we one short? Sam filled us in on the chopper ride, he says you guys have been keeping Barnes here.” Clint gives the room at large an approving nod. “Not a bad place to hide out, if you can stand the humidity.”

Steve can’t help it; he breaks eye contact. “Bucky …” He pauses, swallows. He hasn’t been looking forward to explaining the situation downstairs. “Bucky’s treatment isn’t going so well.”

Eyebrows go up around the room. “Wow,” says Sam, swinging his feet up on the coffee table and grimacing when the movement jars his ribs. “If only someone could have seen that coming.”

“Don’t you start,” says Steve, more sharply than he intended. Of course, yesterday’s incident with the Winter Soldier was exactly what Sam predicted would happen when they first discussed bringing him out of cryo. Steve didn’t listen. Didn’t want to listen. “I’m sorry,” he says, a little more calmly. “It’s been a rough day.”

Sam waves it aside. His mouth is pulled tight around the corners; his ribs must be causing him a lot of pain. Sam’s not usually the kind to say ‘I told you so’.

“That sucks, man,” says Clint. He’s standing by the window, scoping their surroundings like a sentry on lookout. It always takes Clint time to wind down from a fight. “Have you tried hitting him really hard over the head? Worked wonders on me.”

“Actually, I did try,” says Steve. He remembers dragging Bucky’s unconscious body out of a sinking helicopter, weighed down by sodden gear and still spinning from Bucky’s efforts to choke him out. “It didn’t stick.”

Wanda makes a strange half-hearted sort of grimace. She’s distracted, picking at her nails, dark flakes of polish sticking to her fingers. It doesn’t take a genius to guess why she’s so preoccupied. It was Wanda who caused most of the damage in Rome. “Well,” she says vaguely, “I’m sure these things take time.”

Time sounds good in theory; in practice, it’s the daily grind of living with Bucky in his brainwashed state that’s harder than anything else.

Clint gives Wanda a thoughtful look. “You know,” he says, “you could always try –”

“No, I couldn’t.” The words are out of her mouth so fast that Steve wonders if she’s been expecting the question. It’s not as if he hasn’t thought about it himself. Wanda can literally break inside other people’s heads to manipulate their thoughts at will. If anyone could find a magical solution, a way to cut the trigger words right out of Bucky’s head and bypass all this painful waiting, surely it would be her.

But there are reasons Wanda hasn’t practiced her mind control powers at all since she joined the Avengers. They’re too strong, too unwieldy, too difficult to predict. There’s a very real chance she’d do more harm than good, if she tried to intervene in a psychological trauma as specific and complicated as Bucky’s

“T’Challa’s people are the best in their field,” says Steve, before Clint has a chance to argue. He appreciates how supportive Clint is of Wanda, how eager he always is to get her branching out into her powers, but there are lines he’s not going to cross unless he has absolutely no other choice. “I know they’re going to figure this out. It’s just a question of sitting back and letting them.”

Sam gives Steve a searching look. It must sound strange, hearing Steve advocate disinvolvement. Sitting back isn’t usually Steve’s area of expertise – but he’s out of his depth with the Winter Soldier. That much became painfully obvious last night.

“Alright then,” says Clint. No one seems particularly keen to argue with Steve on the subject of Bucky. Clint goes back to watching out the window. Wanda is still picking at her nails. Sam gives Steve a shrug and turns his attention to his injured side, exploring it gently with his fingertips and gritting his teeth at every touch.

But he hasn’t lost interest. “So, laying low’s all well and good,” Sam says. “But I’m wondering what the plan is after that. If the JCTC know we’re in here, they’re not just going to lose interest when we don’t show our faces for a couple of weeks. Do we have an evac plan in the works?”

“We do,” says Steve. “I mean, T’Challa does. We’re …” He was hoping this wouldn’t come up in detail until the others had gotten some rest and wound down from the stress of their recent fight. There’s no easy way to say what he needs to say. “The thing is, we’re going to need to stay in hiding for a while now. I know we’ve all gotten used to … to living a certain way while we’re on the run. In a lot of ways our lives have still been pretty normal. But that’s going to change now. We need to go underground. Deep underground. T’Challa’s got some contacts in Australia who he thinks can probably –”

“I’m gonna cut you off right there, Cap,” says Clint. “I’ve only just gotten my kids into a new school in Illinois. Took us ages to scrounge up fake birth certificates and put all the paperwork in order. They like where they are now. They’re settling in, making friends. I’m not moving them to Australia.”

Steve takes a few breaths to steel himself. Clint’s not going to like this, but there’s no way around it. “I think the safest thing for your family is if you keep your distance for a while.”

The temperature in the room has changed. All eyes are back on Steve, and the friendly atmosphere has disappeared like smoke on a windy day. “Steve,” says Clint. “I’ve spent four months keeping my whole family safe from the government. It’s been hard, and we’ve had some near misses, but I’ve done just fine. I’m not going to throw in the towel now because of one scare.”

“This is more than a scare,” Wanda says. “People are dead because of us. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea if we take ourselves out of the picture for a while.”

“Oh, come on, Wanda. We’ve had this argument before. Do you really want to lock yourself away just so they can’t do it for you?”

“Guys,” says Steve.

“Hey, I’m with Clint on this one,” says Sam. “Some of us have lives back home, Steve. I already missed my mom’s birthday because of this JCTC bullshit. I know you think that sounds petty.”

“I don’t,” says Steve. He looks between the three of them, from Wanda’s expression of grief and resignation to Sam and Clint’s indignant glares. “I don’t, Sam, I really don’t. It’s just that …” Might as well cut to the chase. “This time the choice isn’t ours to make. I know you guys can take care of yourselves, but T’Challa’s worried about getting exposed as our ally if the JCTC get near us again. He needs us to stay put until suspicion has passed.”

Skepticism is etched on Sam’s face. “And we have to be good boys and girls for T’Challa because …”

“Because he’s helped us,” Steve says. “He never had to get involved in any of this. He could have walked away anytime, but he’s stuck it out and saved all our skins and now he’s in danger because of it. I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but we’re burning through allies pretty fast these days, and I really don’t think –”

“I’m sorry,” says Clint, “but when have you ever cared about ‘burning through allies’ before, Mr My-Way-Or-The-Highway?”

Sam gives Steve a piercing look. His eyes narrow. “This is about Bucky, isn’t it?”

“Don’t derail the –”

“Come on, Steve.” With what looks like great difficulty, Sam sits up straight on the couch. “Every decision you’ve made for the last two years has been about Bucky. You don’t want us to leave this facility any more than T’Challa does, because you’re worried our trail might lead the JCTC back to Bucky. That’s what this is about. You could at least be honest with us.”

Steve closes his eyes. “I’m just trying to keep everyone safe,” he says. “Bucky included.” He opens his eyes again, and Sam’s glare hasn’t softened at all.

“If we leave here,” says Clint, “what are you gonna do about it? Are you going to try to hold us against our will?”

“No!” says Steve, so fast that the word almost chokes him. He swallows hard around it. Scrunches his eyes closed again. “T’Challa might.”

“And why shouldn’t he?” Wanda interjects. She’s been quiet, but her eyes are bright and full of feeling; she glares between the three of them with stubborn determination. “Look at what just happened. We’ve got blood on our hands _again_ , and this time we didn’t do it trying to save the world. We did it trying to save our own skins.”

“ _We didn’t start this fight_ ,” Sam says. “We have a right to self-defense. If the government keeps sending hit squads after us, we’ll keep knocking them down. What other choice do we have?”

“Every time,” says Clint. “Every goddamn time, Wanda, c’mon. Nobody in this room thinks hurting people is a good thing. But accidents happen, and you can’t just give up every time something goes wrong.”

“If you think basic safety precautions are the same as giving up, maybe I’m not the one with the problem.”

“ _Guys_ ,” says Steve. All eyes turn back to him.

Silence falls.

“Look,” Steve says, “I’m sorry. I accept full responsibility for the fact that we’re in this position to begin with. It’s because of me that all of you are fugitives, and I know I’m asking a hell of a lot. But this isn’t just about T’Challa. The US borders are on lockdown. Our homes, our families, they’re all being watched. We can’t put them at risk by trying to make contact while the government are hot on our trail.”

“Yeah, well,” says Sam. He’s glaring at the wall, one arm wrapped protectively around his injured ribs. “You’d know all about putting the people you love at risk, wouldn’t you?”

“Sam –”

“Forget it.” Face crumpled in pained concentration, Sam gets to his feet. He gasps, a rattling, wheezy little sound, and sits down again very carefully. “You know what, fuck it, my ribs hurt too much to storm out of here. You can storm out for me.”

Steve looks around the room. Clint is staring determinedly out the window with his back to the argument. Wanda has deflated and is pulling at a thread on her sleeve cuff. Sam is rigid on the couch, his face an angry mask.

So Steve goes. The air outside is stiflingly hot, but it’s better than being trapped inside under the weight of his friends’ resentment. What the hell else is he supposed to do? It feels like so long since he had a choice to make where every option wasn’t rigged to to hurt someone.

–

Sam isn’t at dinner that night – it’s just Steve and T’Challa, and Clint with freshly bruised knuckles, and Wanda with a closed-off expression and a sudden aversion to eye contact. Nobody talks much. There’s plenty left to say, but no one wants to be the first to say it.

After his meal Steve heads to the doctors’ lounge. It’s a compromise – he can’t face the thought of going down to the lab where the Winter Soldier is kept, but he feels obliged to check in on the day’s progress. Last Steve heard, the Soldier was still in and out of paralysis, beating the walls of his cage and hurling graphic threats at the medical staff whenever the drugs holding him still wore off.

Dr Medvedev is there in the lounge, working on a crossword puzzle with his feet up on the coffee table. His tie is loose, his shirt untucked. Steve has never seen him off guard before. In the Soldier’s presence, Dr Medvedev makes a point of projecting authority at all times.

“Am I interrupting?” Steve says.

Dr Medvedev turns. His eyes are tired, but he smiles and gestures for Steve to take a seat with him. “I meant to come and find you soon,” he says. “We have a few things to discuss.”

It’s hard to know where to start. “Did you see him today?” Steve asks.

“I did,” says Dr Medvedev, and breathes a heavy sigh. “Suffice it to say that it was not our most productive session. To be honest, Captain, I doubt there is much I can do for him in such an uncooperative frame of mind. He needs to be back in decompression.”

 _Decompression_ is the medical team’s preferred euphemism for the experimental reconditioning experiments being undertaken by facility chief Dr Mboye. Dr Medvedev’s therapy sessions with the Winter Soldier are dialogue-based, not all that different from the PTSD support program Sam used to work on; they were only ever intended as a complement to Dr Mboye’s heavier-duty programme aimed at modifying the Winter Soldier’s brainwashing and instilling new behaviours to override his violent instincts. But Dr Mboye’s programme involves moving the Soldier from his containment cell to a specially designed workroom equipped with her state-of-the-art – and extremely breakable – equipment.

Steve can see why the prospect of getting him there might worry Dr Medvedev.

“You don’t think he’s going to calm down?” Steve asks. From his current healthy distance, he almost feels sorry for the Soldier: he knows damn well what it feels like to wake up one day and realise that the people you thought you could trust are enemies working to bring down everything you hold dear. But the Soldier is not with Hydra anymore, and he’s got no motive to keep parroting their party line; he can’t sustain his anger forever. Once he gets used to his new situation, he he’ll have to accept that it’s in his interests to cooperate.

Steve remembers the Soldier’s expression last time they came face to face. The Soldier has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t feel he _has_ to accept anything.

And Dr Medvedev knows it better than Steve. Somehow, without crying or shouting himself hoarse or losing faith in humanity, Dr Medvedev has managed to spend half the day in the Soldier’s company. “I have consulted with Dr Mboye,” he says, “about the viability of continuing our programme while our patient is in such an oppositional mood. With your permission, Captain, we intend to forge ahead with the decompression treatments. It will not be pleasant. He will need to be brought in by force.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “With my permission?” he says.

Dr Medvedev nods gravely. “Bucky is operating under the lingering effects of enemy mind control. We do not deem him competent to give or refuse consent in his current state. You are the nearest thing we have to his guardian, and so the choice to proceed with treatment must be yours.”

Steve has seen footage of the decompression treatments on feeds from the security room above the lab. Videos, propaganda, hypnosis, brain scans. An IV drip containing a mild sedative, enough to keep the Soldier calm and improve his receptiveness without dulling his wits. The sessions don’t come close to Hydra’s brutal brainwashing regimen, but they were uncomfortable enough to watch when Bucky was going in of his own volition. The thought of forcing him into that position makes Steve sick to his stomach.

He remembers sitting out in the courtyard with Bucky the night before the doctors triggered his programming. He remembers the look on Bucky’s face, the ragged sound of his breathing as he fought to hold back tears. _I want to get better_.

The man in the basement is not Bucky, but Bucky’s still in there. Steve can’t let himself forget it. He can’t. And Bucky would want this.

“Do it,” he says. “Just...let me be the one to tell him. I owe him that.”

–

Steve’s not expecting to see Sam again tonight, so he’s surprised when he hears slow footsteps behind him on his way down the long windowed corridor towards the lab. Sam looks weak and unsteady on his feet, but his expression dares anyone to offer him a hand. He stops beside Steve in front of the window and for a long moment neither of them speak.

“Sam,” Steve says. “I want to –”

“I’m sorry for losing it with you before,” says Sam. “What I said was messed up.” He grips the windowsill to support himself, and gives Steve a wry grin. “Doctors have upped the dose on my pain meds, so I guess that’s helped take the edge off my temper.”

Despite the bravado, Sam’s face looks pale. It’s been a while since Steve broke a rib – it hasn’t happened much since before the serum, when his coughing fits in winter used to overpower the strongest cough syrup his mom could get her hands on – but he vividly remembers how much they used to hurt. “You know,” says Steve, “we could always do this sitting down.”

“I’m good,” says Sam. He’s obviously not, but Steve knows better than to push. Sam has his pride to defend.

Steve gazes out the window. The sun sank hours ago; the facility is like a bubble of light surrounded by a sea of dense black jungle. “I’ve made a lot of tough decisions these last few months,” he says. “I thought I could handle them, but it turns out I’m not the only one who’s had to. I’m sorry all this has come back on you.”

Sam shrugs. “The Accords are not your fault.”

“I know,” says Steve. The Accords are only the beginning of all the reasons Sam has to be angry right now. “You’re not wrong that I’m doing this for Bucky, Sam. If the JCTC find this place, I don’t want to think about what’ll happen to him. And I promised I’d do whatever it took to protect him from that. I promised I’d keep him safe here, and I can’t live with myself if I break that promise.”

“Jesus,” says Sam, and shakes his head. “You’re always ready with a speech, aren’t you? I get it, Steve. You and Bucky have this whole thing going, and god help anyone who tries to stand between you. I’m not that stupid.”

“I know you’re not,” Steve ploughs on. “But I want you to know, I do realise how much you’ve sacrificed to help me keep Bucky safe. He’s not your friend, he’s not even your responsibility, but you’ve been here with me from day one and it’s cost you more than anyone had a right to ask. And I owe you an –”

“Steve,” says Sam, cutting him off with a hand held out high between them like a barrier. “You could just say thank you.”

Steve stares at Sam through his reflection in the glass. The pain meds haven’t made him woozy, or at least Steve doesn’t think they have; his eyes are clear. “I’m sorry –”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know you’re sorry. All you ever do is say sorry. Sorry you dragged me into this, sorry you couldn’t do it all by yourself, sorry you let anyone else get hurt. Believe it or not, Steve, I signed up for all this of my own free will. I’m here because I want to be, because I believe in the work we’re doing. And I’m here because you’re my friend, and I don’t let my friends down. I’m here for the same reason you’ve spent all this time fighting for Bucky. And I don’t think you blame Bucky for needing you, any more than I blame you for needing me.”

It takes Steve a moment to get his head around the words, they’re so far from where his mind was. After the hellish two years they’ve had, ‘thank you’ seems laughably inadequate. Steve always assumed his gratitude was obvious to everyone within a fifty mile radius. He assumed ‘thank you’ went without saying. “Sam –”

“But all of that is a decision I’m making,” says Sam over the top of him. “It’s not something you’re forcing me to do and it’s not something you have to apologise for. So instead of wallowing in guilt because you’re having trouble looking after everyone at once, you could just thank me for having your back.”

Of course it never went without saying. Steve could kick himself for being so self-absorbed. “Thank you, Sam. Really.”

They look at each other for a long, quiet moment. Sam nods. “I’m not gonna pretend to be happy about your plan,” he says. “And if you weren’t right for other reasons, maybe I’d tell you and Bucky to go to hell.” He wouldn’t. Sam’s whole expression says he knows damn well he wouldn’t, and Steve’s heart aches in his chest with guilt and gratitude and selfish relief. “But my family don’t need the shit I’ll bring down on them right now if I try to make contact. I don’t need the government dragging in my mom for questioning, or staking out my nephew’s school. So I’m staying with you. It’d be nice to know that you appreciate it.”

“I do,” says Steve.

“Alright then,” says Sam. It’s not going to change anything – it’s not going to undo the total mess Sam’s life has turned into on Steve’s account. But some of the tension has eased. It’s a start. “You on your way to bed already? I was going to see if I could scrounge up some cards, teach Wanda how to finally play Blackjack properly.”

It’s a peace offering, and Steve can’t think of anything he wants more than to take it. But his day isn’t over yet. “I’ve got one more thing I have to do first,” he says. One more thing he desperately doesn’t want to do, but tapping out isn’t an option anymore. Not after the choice he made with Dr Medvedev.

The lab has a dark, empty feeling when Steve goes down there. It’s probably his imagination: the overhead lights are as bright as ever, and a few of the lab staff are still working away at their stations. Last time Steve saw the Soldier he was in full-scale meltdown mode, and he’s half expecting the chaos to resume when he catches sight of Steve. But the Soldier is calm, slouched on his bed in the same clothes Steve left him in, and his eyes look distant and oddly glazed. There’s an unfamiliar new canister attached to the ventilation system for his cage. A sedative of some kind, probably.

The control collar is still firmly locked around the Soldier’s neck, but the skin underneath looks red and irritated. The injections it delivers are supposed to paralyse the Soldier when he acts out, not cause any damage. Presumably they’re not meant to be delivered as often in a day as the Soldier has needed them.

The Soldier’s sleepy gaze falls on Steve. He doesn’t look pleased to see him, but whatever’s in his air supply must be pretty strong. He barely even bothers to glare.

“How are you?” Steve asks. He’s not expecting a response, so he’s not disappointed. “I know it’s been a pretty tough day. If you don’t want to talk, I’m not going to push you.”

The Soldier rolls his eyes and says nothing. Steve tries to imagine what must be going through his mind right now – what Steve must look like, standing outside his cage and trying to make small talk. “I’m just here to let you know,” Steve says, “that I talked to your doctors and I’ve given permission for them to resume your regular treatment tomorrow.”

A sharp flicker of attention breaks through the Soldier’s sedative-laced daze, and it strikes Steve that ‘permission’ was a very stupid word choice. The Soldier is obsessed with authority. His whole relationship with Steve, flimsy and prickly as it’s been so far, has rested on the implicit understanding that he and Steve are on the same level and that the doctors are the ones calling the shots. There’s no point trying to explain to the Soldier the nuances of proxy consent and duty of care. If the doctors are looking to Steve for permission, then Steve is in charge of the doctors. Which means that everything the Soldier was led to believe about lab hierarchy was a lie.

But this new betrayal doesn’t seem to upset the Soldier. He props his elbow on one knee and rests his chin in his only hand, and watches Steve through the glass with a kind of lazy disdain that probably has more to do with the sedation than with some miraculous newfound ability to keep his anger in perspective.

“You already know the routine back to front,” Steve goes on, because he’s pretty sure the Soldier is listening even if he’s too doped up to respond. “As far as we’re concerned, nothing has changed. The doctors want to keep going with everything just like they have been. I know it probably doesn’t feel like it right now, but we’re trying to help you. I hope you’ll remember that tomorrow when the doctors come to see you.”

Steve’s turning away, ready to leave the lab, when the Soldier’s rusty voice pulls him back. “It won’t work.”

Steve looks around. The Soldier’s face is half-hidden behind a curtain of stringy hair, but Steve can see the smile. It’s an ugly smile, thin-lipped and joyless, and Steve didn’t come here with the intention of losing patience but the Soldier sure as hell doesn’t make it easy. Is he pushing on principle, or is he pushing because he still thinks there’s another way out?

“You realise no one’s coming for you, right?” Steve says, before he can think better of it. “The show’s over. Hydra’s gone. We killed them.”

The Soldier snorts. “Cut off one head –”

“We cut off all the heads, pal. And we burned the corpse. You can spend the rest of your life sitting here in your cell, refusing to believe me, but it won’t get you anywhere.” Steve pulls up a chair by the glass and sits down. From this angle he can see the Soldier’s face better, much good may it do him. He’s already through the darkest stage of exhaustion and out the other end, running on nervous energy and stubbornness. “Why are you fighting us so hard? Help me understand. We’ve had you here for weeks and you know, you _know_ we’re not going to do anything to hurt you. Hydra locked you up, they tortured you, they brainwashed you. All we’re trying to do is help you recover.”

The Soldier lifts his head and gives Steve a long, slow look up and down. The nasty smile has slipped from his face. “It won’t work,” he says again.

Steve grits his teeth. The Soldier is calm, his guard is down, he’s too relaxed and woozy to manage any of his usual posturing and defensiveness. But talking to him is like headbutting a brick wall. He doesn’t give an inch; it’s impossible to tell if he’s even really listening. “Why not?” Steve says.

“Because I’m not a fucking idiot,” says the Soldier. He stifles a yawn with his forearm. It looks like it’s costing him most of his energy just to stay upright, but his gaze on Steve’s face doesn’t falter. “You think you don’t have to lift a goddamn finger. You think you can just lock me in a cage and _lecture_ me until I start seeing the world your way. Like I’m some blank slate for you to write and rewrite however you want. Like I don’t know exactly who I am and what the fuck I’m here for.”

 _You_ don’t _know who you are_ , Steve wants to say, because the whole argument is a sick joke and the Soldier doesn’t even realise it. “Who are you, then?” he asks instead.

The Soldier’s awful smile is back. “I’m the guy who’s gonna give the world what it needs,” he says. “Discipline. Leadership. Peace. I’ll cut down anyone who stands in the way, and I don’t care who gets hurt. I don’t care if _I_ get hurt. So whatever you’re going to do to me, just do it. I don’t give a fuck, it won’t make a difference.”

A long silence follows this pronouncement. “You really believe what you’re saying, don’t you?” Steve asks.

The Soldier stifles another yawn. He’s losing interest, or else the sedatives are overpowering him. “Heil Hydra,” he says.

Steve stands up. He shouldn’t have engaged in the first place. Bucky’s under mind control, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s saying. No one gains anything by Steve staying here listening to his oldest friend spout mass-manufactured Hydra platitudes with an ugly smirk on his face.

“Get some sleep,” he tells the Soldier. “The doctors will collect you early tomorrow.”

He turns away, but not soon enough to miss the Soldier’s mocking salute.

–

Before they start the next treatment, the doctors call another meeting with Steve. He’s starting to regret that he agreed to stand as Bucky’s proxy. He barely slept last night; every time he closed his eyes he could see Bucky’s face, see his nasty smile as his lips shaped themselves around the words _heil Hydra_. It’s not like Steve didn’t know going in that triggering Bucky’s Winter Soldier programming would make it an ordeal to interact with him. But he wasn’t expecting the vehemence with which the Soldier would defend his own brainwashed agenda.

No, that’s not true. Vehemence was exactly what Steve expected. What he didn’t expect was that in quiet moments, when all the anger and adrenaline were drained from the Soldier’s veins, he would still cling to Hydra as tenaciously as in the heat of battle. He didn’t expect the calm, steady conviction in the Soldier’s eyes as he recited his pledge of allegiance to Hydra.

Steve’s tired. He doesn’t want to face it. He wishes the doctors would just do what they need to do, and leave him out of it.

But Dr Mboye looks untroubled when Steve tells her in brief about his encounter with the Soldier last night. Just seeing Dr Mboye out of her lab is a rare occurrence – she seems to spend all her time in there, poring over collected data and tinkering with her equipment. Steve’s not entirely sure she sleeps.

“Not to worry, Captain Rogers,” she tells him, unwilling or unable to keep the satisfaction from her voice. “Our method has been fundamentally flawed, and I believe I understand now why Bucky has not made faster progress in decompression. Today’s revised programme will correct the error.”

Steve’s not sure how he feels about this pronouncement. It was obvious enough even to his untrained eye that whatever Dr Mboye was doing wasn’t having much effect, but she sounds entirely too pleased to admit her own error.

“What have you found?” he asks warily.

Dr Mboye hands over a bulging display folder. Inside are what look like brain scans, dozens and dozens of them, barely distinguishable except for the highlighting and annotations in different places. “When I devised this treatment,” she says, “I was focused on the patient’s memory retention and cognitive learning abilities. My theory was that by manipulating the information stream to which he was exposed, I could produce meaningful change in his behaviour. I discussed this with you at the time, you will recall.”

Steve nods. They discussed it at great length, sometimes even in words Steve recognised as English. “But you have a new theory now,” he says.

“Observe figures EF1 through EF27,” says Dr Mboye, nodding at the folder in Steve’s hands. “Those images were taken during a standard test of neurological responsiveness to emotive stimuli. We know where Bucky’s problem lies, Captain. His cognitive functioning is normal. His memory access is disrupted, but not fundamentally broken. The problem lies here.” She jabs the picture at what looks to Steve like a completely arbitrary place. “Throughout the test, he showed almost no activity in the paralimbic cortex.”

“Well, gosh,” says Steve flatly. He’s too tired to deal with Dr Mboye’s opaque science talk today. “That sure explains a lot.”

Dr Mboye doesn’t seem put out by the sarcasm. “The paralimbic cortex is a system in the brain which controls emotion processing,” she explains. “It enables us to experience complex prosocial emotions and to control impulsive behaviour. Severe dysfunction in the paralimbic cortex is associated with a condition you might know as psychopathy.”

That gets Steve’s attention. “Psychopathy,” he repeats.

Dr Mboye smiles. “Psychopathy is often misrepresented in popular media,” she says. “We are not talking about the glamorous sadists and criminal masterminds of late night TV programming. Essentially, psychopathy is the extreme manifestation of a cluster of callous and unemotional traits resulting from the brain’s inability to experience fear, grief, compassion or remorse. Without input from these necessary areas of the brain, the afflicted individual is neurologically incapable of feeling empathy for others. He is unemotional and understimulated, and lacks the fear responses and forward-planning abilities that make behavioural changes stick. He has no fear of the consequences of his actions and no motivation to control the impulses of the moment.”

Steve remembers the Soldier’s words last night, remembers his smile as he stared Steve down through the glass. _Whatever you’re going to do to me, just do it. I don’t give a fuck_. He thought it was defiance, a way for the Soldier to express contempt for his captors. He didn’t think any of it was real.

“But that’s not Bucky,” he says. “Bucky feels … he feels fear, and remorse, and all that. He cares about people.” He cares so much that he was willing to freeze himself rather than risk hurting anyone again.

“No paralimbic dysfunction was apparent in the scans we took prior to activating the Winter Soldier’s programming,” says Dr Mboye, which Steve assumes is meant to indicate agreement. “I can find no signs of atrophy or physical damage in the affected areas of his brain. None of us will disagree that Bucky, as distinct from the Winter Soldier, is absolutely non-psychopathic.” She taps the image again. “It appears to me that one of the main functions of Hydra’s trigger phrase is to impose an artificial bypass on the bridges of communication between the paralimbic cortex and the rest of the brain. That is what causes the drastic personality change when Bucky is triggered.”

In the back of his mind, Steve is running through all of his past encounters with the Winter Soldier, inspecting them through Dr Mboye’s new lens. His lack of fear in combat. His indifference to pain. His impulsive violence, his uninhibited rages, his total disregard or collateral damage. “So he’s … what, half a psychopath? A part-time psychopath? Normal guy by day, psychopath by night?”

“In layman’s terms,” says Dr Mboye with a tolerant smile. “I understand it may not sound like good news, Captain. But this explains a great deal to me about the mechanisms of Hydra’s brainwashing that were opaque before. And knowing where the dysfunction lies means I can target it effectively. If I can remind the Winter Soldier’s brain that those lost pathways still exist, it is possible that I can make him more receptive to our reeducation programme. Perhaps I can even undo some of the damage that Hydra has inflicted on his mind.”

“Right,” says Steve. He looks down at the folder in his hands and feels sick to his stomach. It shouldn’t come as a revelation that the Winter Soldier doesn’t feel empathy. It only takes a couple of minutes in his company to realise that a certain element of human emotion is missing from his brain. But hearing it explained in such intimate medical detail makes it real in a way that endless hours listening to the Winter Soldier’s callous flights of fancy somehow never did. It was easier – less unsettling – to believe that Bucky’s feelings were still there somewhere inside the Soldier, thinly suppressed by Hydra’s brutal conditioning. It’s difficult to think about the possibility that Hydra might have found a way to turn them _off_.

It doesn’t make a difference. It _shouldn’t_ make a difference. At the end of the day, their goals haven’t changed. All that’s really changed is that the doctors now have a better idea of what they’re dealing with.

The sedatives have mostly worn off by the time they bring the Soldier to Dr Mboye’s lab. He’s still calm enough not to try and rush the guards, or maybe he’s finally gotten used to the fact that his collar makes overt resistance completely pointless. His glare is scorching as they strap him into the chair. He can’t see Steve behind the one-sided mirror of the adjacent viewing room; for that much, Steve is privately grateful. They’re hoping not to have to sedate the Soldier again today. Ideally, he should be alert for the treatment.

Today’s plan is simple: Dr Mboye will stimulate the Soldier’s brain to try and encourage activity in the desired regions. It’s the same method she’s been using for weeks now, this time targeting the paralimbic cortex instead of the memory centres. The only real difference is that this time, the Soldier doesn’t want to be there. He bares his teeth when the doctors approach. His eyes track their movements around the room. Dr Mboye fits an electrode cap over the Soldier’s head and forget everything she’s just told him about psychopathy and lack of fear, Steve could swear he sees a flicker of apprehension on the Soldier’s face.

“I want you to focus on the images on the screen in front of you,” Dr Mboye tells the Soldier in her calmest, most authoritative voice. “Feel free to share your feelings about anything you see. If you experience any discomfort, please tell us immediately.”

The Soldier bares his teeth at her. The screen turns on; the machine behind him hums into life. A picture of Central Park on a sunny day. A picture of an empty beer can lying by the side of the road. A man looking down the barrel of a gun. A smiling boy swinging a baseball bat.

Nothing. The Soldier gazes indifferently at the screen, his face etched with cool defiance. With her eyes trained on her patient’s face and pen poised in her hand, Dr Mboye reaches out and slowly turns a dial on the machine.

A picture of a bookshelf. A crying child. A tree, dark with moss. A woman’s face, crumpled in fear as a masked man holds a knife to her throat.

The Soldier’s face drains of blood. His mouth falls open.

“Doctor,” calls a nurse, poring over the readouts on her screen. “Look at this.”

Dr Mboye hurries over to look at the screen. “Well,” she says. “That certainly seems to –”

Without warning, the Soldier throws back his head and screams.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're enjoying the series so far, you should come hit me up on [tumblr](http://itsbuckybitch.tumblr.com)! There's a good chance that question you have is something I'm secretly bursting to talk about. :)
> 
> Also, quick note for all the people clicking 'subscribe': thanks so much! But please remember that I'm posting each new instalment as a new fic in the series, not as a multi-chaptered fic, so you won't receive the updates you're hoping for by using the subscribe button on this story. You need to click through to the series link and subscribe from there.


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